"Well, Lorenzo doesn't understand the Bond at all. Or the Trial." Karalti buried the tip of her snout in my hair, huffing in the scents she found there. "He thinks I can Bond with anyone, for one thing and that the idea of going through a Trial is old-fashioned and dangerous. He gave me a nice present, though, and he told me some stuff about the Solonkratsu who used to live in Myszno."
I willed the knots in my shoulder blades to dissolve, but they didn't. "Be careful with him, Tidbit. Okay? The man's a snake."
"I know. He’s a bit pushy, but I like the shiny he gave me." Satisfied, Karalti reared back up, her wing membranes rasping softly as she moved. She squatted back on her tail and pubic bone, letting her hands rest between her knees. "And... hey. I wanted to say I'm sorry. For last night. I ended up talking to Suri for a while... she helped me understand some things about how I feel. I’m not mad at you, I swear. I missed you, actually."
“Thanks. And I’m sorry for not helping you more. You can't help it if you're hormonal. I remember what it was like when I was that age." Once she was settled, I wandered over and ran my hand along one of her fingers, stroking the long, steel-hard slashing claw. “Are you… like… in heat?”
"No. Not yet." She almost sounded embarrassed. “I think I feel like this before it’s the right time because you're always in heat. I don’t blame you or anything… but I would just feel your feelings and get worked up.”
Oh. Shit. I smacked my face into my palm. "Right, because the Bond goes both ways. Yeah… I held off on having sex for a while. I figured that would be enough to protect you."
"It's okay! Neither of us knew! Suri helped me figure out that I was feeling your needs like they were mine, but that I don't actually WANT to mate yet. It's hard to explain." She gestured vaguely in the direction of her tail. "I feel better now.”
A flush crept across my cheeks. “Me too, funnily enough. So… you’re not jealous anymore? For real?”
“A little,” she admitted. “Because I’m still gonna have to share no matter what. But she’s been very patient with me, even when I was acting like a dumb hatchling… so I’ll be okay. I know you love me. And I think she’s good for you.”
“Me too.” I closed my eyes and relaxed against her. “Thanks, Tidbit. And look – I’m sorry I never had a proper talk with you about this shit. I should have taken you aside when we were both calm and been proactive about it. I should have gone to the library and researched everything I could about dragons until I was sick of it. But I didn't. I was too embarrassed to even try."
"It's okay." She crooned, inflating her throat like a bellows. "We just have to learn more, right? Even I don't know everything about me. Soma said there's a library in Karhad where we can learn a lot of stuff. I was thinking that after the war, we could go try to find some other dragons?"
"Sure. We’ll see if we can find you a boyfriend." Relieved, I patted her on the wrist, and leaned against her leg. It was almost pitch black under the shelter of her wing. Rain pattered on the membrane overhead.
She giggled. “Or three!”
“Three boyfriends? Damn, girl.” I grinned. “You won’t have any time for me.”
"Of course I will. You’re my number one hairless monkey.”
“Hairless monkey?” I reached around and grabbed my braids. “Do you see these magnificent Tuun braids? Dragozin Hector is NOT hairless, thank you very much.”
She bared her teeth in a big draconic smile, but then abruptly sobered up. “Seriously though… When the day comes, when my blood tells me it’s time to fly, I have to fly. Do you understand?"
"Fly, as in, let a bunch of eligible Solonkratsu bachelors chase you until one of them catches you?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "And when that happens... then you're the one who’s gonna have to deal with how I feel."
Yikes. I hadn't thought about that. "We'll figure something out. Maybe I can visit a brothel and channel my inner Vash while I do lines of Viagra off the ass of the one of the, like, eight hookers I’m fucking. Just make a grand old time of it.”
Karalti giggled. "Vash would probably join in if you asked him.”
“Probably.” I laughed despite myself. "You have no idea how relieved I am to see you and Suri getting along better.”
"Yeah. She was so nice to me.” Karalti rumbled, a sound that made my teeth buzz like really good bass. “Last night felt… good. I could tell you felt good."
“I do.” I rubbed one of the scales on her leg, feeling the metal of my gloves click against the smooth, glassy surface. Each scale was like a jewel, inky and glinting with subtle red, orange, and green fire. "I'm glad, seriously. And I want you to know that you're always going to be my number one. You know that, right?"
"Yeah." She delicately ran her claws over my chest, flexing in just enough to press me against her leg. "And you’re always going to be mine, no matter how many boyfriends I have."
I was in no way ready to accept that just yet. I’d known, intellectually, that Karalti would eventually court male dragons, but it hadn’t really sunk in. "Want to go see if we’re able to pull off some ridiculously dangerous aerial maneuvers? I want to practice jumping and landing while you’re in the air. "
"I WANT to sleep more. But I GUESS we can go train."
"Then we're gonna need a MON-TAGE!" I wiggled out from behind her hand and began to bounce around her feet, pelvic thrusting and-or shadowboxing the whole time. "WOO yeah! Welcome to the limit! Walk along the razors' edge! But don't look down just keep your head! Yeah! Nanananana MONTAGE!"
"Yeah. That's the other reason me and Suri get along better now. She understands my pain." Karalti groaned, and used the edge of her wing to nudge me out of the way and stand up. “I’m so glad you didn’t become a bard.”
I jabbed my finger at her a couple of times. "You chose this. You knew, as soon as you looked into my eyes, that you wanted this magnificent hunk of well-marinated, spicy beefcake to cherish you for all of your days."
Karalti flickered her inner eyelids so hard that for a moment, she looked like she had cataracts. "Ugh. Shut up and get on before I barbecue your fat head."
The morning's goal was to fix the biggest problem I'd been having with our aerobatics so far: landing on a moving target. The ‘Jumping off into the abyss’ part of our aerial combat style was getting easier, as was the 'staying in the air' part. Master of Blades, Rain of Glass, and Whirlwind Butcher were all push attacks. On the ground, they pushed enemies away from me. In the air, they pushed me back up into the air between ten and twenty feet. I could dash through the air using Shadow Dance, and if I spammed it with Jump and - strangely enough - Umbra Blast, I could move practically any direction in the air while slowing my descent by several seconds. But landing from all those fancy leaps and attacks onto a flying target going anywhere between fifty and a hundred miles an hour? There was no move for that.
Karalti circled the Center Bastion as I jumped, dashed and blasted around in the air, trying everything to position myself vertically over her back. I was seemingly able to land on everything else. The tower. Her tail. Her wings, once, which flung me head over heels back into the air like a trampoline. Karalti had been forced to dive and snatch me by one leg before I fell over the Wall and landed headfirst in the mud and broken palisades below.
"Okay! One more time!" We had about twenty minutes before Soma addressed the troops. The sun was rising, my stamina was iffy, but I was determined to land the maneuver once before we broke for the day. I unequipped my armor and watched my stamina bar jump up slightly. Not great, but every point counted. "Try leveling out really hard, Tidbit. I keep missing the fucking saddle pad."
"Alright. Be careful." The dragon emitted a piercing cry of encouragement as she wheeled around the bastion. Guardsmen were clustered on the parapet a hundred feet below, shading their eyes to watch us.
"One! Two! Alley-oop!" My feet left Karalti's back, and the wind tore me back through the air as she soared off ahead, did a wingover, and came right back. She was a
s straight as a javelin. The lineup was perfect.
You can do it, man. You’re Hector fucking Park. My eyes widened dizzily as my dragon's gleaming form rushed underneath me. Her head passed, her neck... " Come on, come on, come on... and STICK IT!"
The landing had three steps: touch down on the back of the saddle, turn it into a safety roll, catch the saddle grips. Just as my feet made contact, a gust of wind caught in her wings and lifted her back like a springboard. I fell into the safety roll, tumbled head over ass and flew off her starboard wing, smacking my jaw into the edge of the membrane on the way past. "OH SHIT OH SHIT oh - oww! - OH FUCK-!
Karalti tried to wing over to snatch me from the air, but she wasn’t fast enough. I plummeted past her and careened off the edge of the Wall, sailed gracefully through the air, and landed chest-first right on top of a guard’s upright pike. A deep bruising pain ripped through my torso, like a freezing cold punch that went all the way through. Too shocked to make a sound, I stared down at my chest. The spear had gone in just under my fourth rib and came out through my collarbone. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have.
"... Oops." The word bubbled up with the blood that sprayed onto the stunned soldier's face. The last thing I saw was a crowd of hands grabbing us, and then my eyes rolled back and the darkness flowed in.
[You have taken a Mortal Wound [Heart Strike]!]
[You have earned a new badge: Hold My Beer and Watch This!]
[You take 1500 damage!]
[You are dead.]
My chest was still aching when I woke up face-down on a cold stone floor.
"Cock." Naked, shivering, at half HP, I rolled over onto my bare ass and looked around in confusion. This wasn't Vulkan Keep, unless the Keep had suddenly gotten a lot shabbier. The room was hexagonal, with two stone beds. A fire was burning in the fireplace. The air was pleasantly scented with pine smoke and feminine perfumes, like sandalwood and amber and honey. They were familiar, but I couldn't remember why. Where the hell was I?
A slender, bluish steel glaive lay on the floor beside me. The weapon pulsed with seams of red light, and when I lay a hand over it, the light intensified. When my hand touched it, the energy directly underneath pulsed black as night, then my temples throbbed. I winced, clutching my head as some of my memory returned. The Spear of Nine Spheres: right. The perfumes were… Suri's? This was the bedroom we were sharing with my dragon at Ka... Ko... Fort K-something.
"Hector?!" A sweet voice broke through the fugue. "Where are you? Are you alright?!"
I rubbed my fluttering temples and grimaced. "Uhhh... yes? Kind of? What the fuck just happened?"
"What do you mean, what just happened? You died! I'm at the bastion!”
“Which bastion?”
“Bastion Nine! Your stuff is here!"
"Bastion Nine... okay." With a sigh, I used the Spear to stand and searched for something to cover my privates. I was about to ask my mysterious brain-voice how to get to 'Bastion Nine' when a Head's Up Display popped up, startling me.
[We have detected that you may be experiencing some issues with your Archemi world experience. Don’t worry - most disturbances are minor and easily remedied with our troubleshooter. Would you like to check for problems?]
"I... no?" I waved the weird popup away, searching for something to cover myself so I could go and get my things. The window continued to nag.
[If you experience any dizziness, memory loss or emotional distress during your virtual reality experience, it is important to contact a Moderator as soon as possible. Assistance is available 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. Would you like to check in with a Moderator?]
"No! And would you please fuck off? I can't see!" I shooed the notification to the side and staggered out the door with a threadbare towel clamped over my privates.
My bare feet slapped against stone as I ran out into a corridor, then through a door and out onto a medieval rampart. Everything looked surreal and distant as I wove through guardsmen, following my instincts and the sound of a dragon trumpeting overhead. My eyes were blurry, head full of cotton wool as I ran out onto the rampart, weaving through the guardsmen. My heart and chest were aching by the time I burst out of the bastion door.
A circle of soldiers stood around my pack and a pile of dust on the ground, while Kai... Katie?... flew circles around the tower. "Excuse me! Mostly naked man, coming through!"
Faces paled, and a murmur rippled through the ranks. The soldiers backed away from me against the walls, staring like they'd just seen a ghost. One man was covered in blood, gaping at me in open mouthed horror as I went to my bag and searched for something to wear.
"Hector! Are you okay?!" The dragon circled around and landed on the edge of the wall. As her shadow fell over us, the terrified soldiers fled down either end of the rampart. I was still trying to make sense of the bag when the dragon ducked her head down and nudged me with her snout.
When her scales touched my skin, my temples heated sharply. I groaned, dropping my Spear with a clatter as my memories were shoved into my brain from between my eyes. Suddenly, I remembered it all: Karalti. Suri. Fort Korona. The general assembly. Fuck – what time was it?
I re-equipped my clothes, weapon, and the Raven Suit, then dropped into a squat, rubbing my eyes. "Urgh. Wow, okay… that was weird.”
"Rytier!" One of the guardsmen edged closer to us. My head jerked up. He was reaching out to me, as if unconvinced that I was real. "How is this… I-I saw you die with my own eyes!"
“Back it up, buckethead!” Karalti hissed and snapped at him, flashing rows of dagger-sized fangs. The man stumbled back, almost colliding with the wall.
"Calm down, Tidbit." I lay a shaky hand just above her nostrils. They flexed beneath my palm, snorting blasts of hot, ozone-scented air over my skin. After a second or two, the shaking stopped, and I felt better. Almost as if the death had never happened. "Short answer is that I'm a motherfuckin’ Starborn. Start assembling, guys – it’s time for the parade."
Eyes wide, the guard stepped back. The murmuring intensified. "Yes... Your Grace."
[You have become a subject of gossip! Your Renown may rise or fall as word of your deeds spread around your locale. You have gained +20 Renown.]
After making sure that all my bits and bobs were still attached, I remounted and buckled myself to the saddle. The guards retreated as Karalti launched herself heavily into the air, cut around the tower, and headed for the parade ground.
“That was fucking weird.” I hung on dizzily, bucking up and down with every wingbeat. “That time when I died, I forgot everything. I felt… like someone who wasn’t real. Couldn’t remember your name. Couldn’t remember MY name. But then you touched me, and the memories came back.”
“I dunno. Maybe ask Rin?” Karalti sounded anxious.
“No point. She can’t do anything about it. I can’t do anything about it, either. But I know something I have to do… I have to record a post-mortem message for myself in case it happens again. After this fracas is over, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
We broke over the star-shaped parade ground. Ranks of soldiers were starting to form below, swirling into formation. Ignas's troops - fresh, well-equipped and disciplined - stood at attention. The Yanik Rangers were also straight, orderly, and disciplined, strikingly different to the Black Army in their ghillie-suit armor. Their equipment was different, too: they carried pistols, javelins, and heavy cutlasses. Zlaslo was present, looking seedy but functional. He saluted us from the ground.
The other soldiers were a mix. Sergeants barked orders at the [Militia Pikemen] and [Militia Swordsman] units, trying and failing to get them to stand in the same lockstep formation as the professional soldiers to their left. The militia was the largest group there, and the highest leveled – but also the lowest in morale. They were armed with a motley array of weapons and gear. and were united under the various banners of their local lords. Those lords and their knights were just arriving: [Royal Hookwing Pistoleers] on their
hissing, agile mounts, the heavy cavalry riding creatures that looked like roided-out unicorns from some post-apocalyptic nightmare. Above them, squadrons of [Ravensblood Dragoons] flew in on their quazi, gliding to the assembly in tight wedge formations.
Karalti let out a piercing, triumphant cry as she flew overhead, pumping her wings and driving up the dust and moss from the parade ground. The awestruck soldiers shielded their faces against the debris as we circled around and came to land with a rolling boom in front of the gate.
"Do you need me here?" Karalti asked uncertainly. "I can't change yet, but I can stand here and look impressive."
"That is literally all you have to do: inspire the troops." The officers were gathering in the gatehouse. Suri was already there, towering over Istvan in her black armor. She had put her cloak on today, and with her red curls blowing in the gusts of cold, blood-scented wind whipping up from the direction of the Endlar, she commanded the presence of a Valkyrie. Soma was there, too, surrounded by his retinue. His fat head swiveled as I strode across, trying not to choke myself on the collar of my cloak as the wind gusted it back.
"I heard you had an accident near Bastion Nine!" Soma boomed as I approached. "Is everyone alright?"
"Yeah. Nothing serious." I gave him a jerk of my head, but could hardly stand to look at him. The memory of him placing the necklace around Karalti's neck flashed through my mind's eye. I almost sneered.
"There have been developments in the battle against the Demon." Soma was on the back of his hookwing, a far more even-tempered and patient beast than Cutthroat, who was still confined to the stables. "I must inspect the ranks. Speak with Istvan and Suri."
"You're the Commander," I replied. "I'll speak with you."
He arched an eyebrow, and then spurred his hookwing and simply rode on past me. I fixed a pleasant, smiling mask on my face and went to go join the people who actually knew what the fuck they were doing.
Istvan was on the back of one of the horned horse-like creatures, a heavy-boned, savage beast with sharp, camel-like teeth and a huge horn arcing up from its beetling brow like a solid bone scimitar. It was like the monster truck of unicorns. The HUD marked this creature as a [Corrun].
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 107